Books

  1. Drought Resistant Plants (RHS Practical Guides)
    Drought Resistant Plants (RHS Practical Guides)

  2. Annuals and Biennials (RHS Practical Guides)
    Annuals and Biennials (RHS Practical Guides)

  3. Pippa's Organic Kitchen Garden
    Pippa's Organic Kitchen Garden

  4. RHS Encyclopedia of Gardening
    RHS Encyclopedia of Gardening

  5. Chelsea: The Greatest Flower Show on Earth
    Chelsea: The Greatest Flower Show on Earth

  6. Hip Houseplants
    Hip Houseplants

  7. The Story of Gardening
    The Story of Gardening

  8. Walls and Fences (RHS Practical Guides)
    Walls and Fences (RHS Practical Guides)

  9. The Damp Garden
    The Damp Garden

  10. Urban Gardener
    Urban Gardener

  11. Sissinghurst: Portrait of a Garden
    Sissinghurst: Portrait of a Garden

  12. The Complete Book of Garlands, Circles and Decorative Wreaths: Enchanting Displays with Fresh and Dried Flowers
    The Complete Book of Garlands, Circles and Decorative Wreaths: Enchanting Displays with Fresh and Dried Flowers

  13. Lavender
    Lavender

  14. The Garden Planner: Innovative Designs for Small Spaces
    The Garden Planner: Innovative Designs for Small Spaces

  15. A Garden for All Seasons: Create a Year-round Beautiful Garden
    A Garden for All Seasons: Create a Year-round Beautiful Garden

  16. Sensational Bouquets by Christian Tortu: Arrangements by a Master Floral Designer
    Sensational Bouquets by Christian Tortu: Arrangements by a Master Floral Designer

  17. The Rose Bible
    The Rose Bible

  18. Flowers for the Table: Arrangements and Bouquets for All Seasons
    Flowers for the Table: Arrangements and Bouquets for All Seasons

  19. Visions of Roses
    Visions of Roses

  20. Orchids
    Orchids

  21. Orchids for Everyone
    Orchids for Everyone

  22. Building Decks (Black & Decker Home Improvement Library)
    Building Decks (Black & Decker Home Improvement Library)

  23. A Cactus Odyssey: Journeys in the Wilds of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina
    A Cactus Odyssey: Journeys in the Wilds of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina

  24. Tree Bark: A Colour Guide
    Tree Bark: A Colour Guide

  25. In and Out of the Garden
    In and Out of the Garden

Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden: Drought-resistant Planting Through the Year
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Beth Chatto is a star!
  • A Fertile Book of Discovery
Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden: Drought-resistant Planting Through the Year
Beth Chatto
Manufacturer: Frances Lincoln
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Garden DesignGarden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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Similar Items:
  1. The Dry Garden
  2. Gardening the Mediterranean Way: How to Create a Waterwise, Drought-Tolerant Garden
  3. Beth Chatto's Woodland Garden: Shade-Loving Plants for Year-Round Interest
  4. Designing with Plants
  5. Gardens by Design

ASIN: 0711214255

Amazon.com

The author of several gardening classics, including The Dry Garden and The Damp Garden, British horticulturist Beth Chatto has once again documented her gardening adventures in Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden. A woman with a true love of soil (no matter how temperamental) and plant life, Chatto set out to create a lovely, viable garden in her gravelly, sandy soil. The challenge to find flowers and shrubs that would survive and thrive in this dry environment became an eight-year experiment that resulted in a beautiful, original gravel garden ranging over three-quarters of an acre.

Chatto takes us through the process step by step, beginning with conceptualization. How can she turn a former parking lot into a prospering garden? She notes that

We all find a haze of bluebells beneath beeches, primroses on clay soil beneath oaks, or a damp meadow golden with buttercups more magical than anything we can create. However, in our gardens we look for more. We learn to make plant associations that extend the season, to create pictures worth living with throughout the year.

Season by season, year by year, Chatto records the planting and maintenance of her gravel garden, reveling in the fecundity and tenacity of nature. Her prose is clear, concise, and at times dryly academic. Readers who have a wide knowledge of botany and an understanding of the Latin names of plants will have a leg up on more casual gardeners. Filled with pictures by Steven Wooster, who has photographed many of Chatto's gardens, the book is a visual delight. The vibrant ruby petals of clematis leap off the page and you can almost feel the spiny green stalks of the Onopordum acanthium. --Dana Van Nest

Book Description

One of the great gardeners of our time shares the story of a horticultural victory.

"How on earth did you do it?" visitors ask Beth Chatto--for in creating her gravel garden, she surpassed even her own renowned mastery of unpromising sites. It was the ultimate challenge: to create a decorative garden on three-quarters of an acre of poor, heavily compacted, gravely soil with no watering, even in times of drought. That her plants survived such cruel conditions and blossomed into a garden of such beauty offers fascinating hands-on lessons. Here are thousands of tips on applying her principles, on the poorest of soil in areas with the sparsest rainfall. Chatto's always witty and engaging voice chronicles her voyage of discovery in this delightfully inspiring must-have for any and every gardener.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Beth Chatto is a star!.......2000-08-22

Finally, a book that lives up to, and exceeds, all expectations. Beth Chatto is one of a highly respected group of plantsmen and women in Britain who knows what she is doing, isn't afraid of making mistakes and doesn't mind sharing it all with us. This book is easy to follow, logically set out, and even the use of taxonomy in naming plants makes you eager to look them up to see what Ms Chatto is describing. The descriptions of plantings through the seasons are like the development of a symphony, from the debut of a plant in its season, through its performance and twilight, to the entrance of its successor in the drama, with punctuations and particular mention of any encore performances of which a plant is capable. Ms Chatto knows her stuff. Anyone living in similar conditions to Ms Chatto's in Britain, Australia or America should find this book a must.

5 out of 5 stars A Fertile Book of Discovery.......2000-08-03

After so many years of having, through necessity, to read only technical and quick reference gardening books. It was such a great pleasure to find a quite place in my garden and be totally engrossed in Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden. Billed by the publisher, Blooming Books as ' a book for Australian conditions ' which is true but this book pertaining to gardening with drought resistant plants will be of interest to anyone who gardens in an arid or low rainfall area, or to those who want to have 'a good read' about one gardeners' vision. Who, as she describes, gardens in the 'driest and most windswept piece of soil in England'

Beth's book has all the requirements of any good reference book but it is more than that. I can only describe it as a cross between a novel, diary and reference book. It is an autobiography of her garden, the trials and tribulations, if you will, of creating a specialised area. This is a great benefit to the reader as she has made all the mistakes and now passes on the right way and what to do, to avoid disappointment. We travel through descriptions of the garden as the four seasons come and go. Descriptions that could hold their own in any non fiction novel. Beth paints with words the obvious love of her garden and gardening.

Any great diva needs an equally great accompanist. Beth certainly is blessed, for the photography of Stephen Wooster compliments her book so well and any adjective I use to describe his images would not do him justice. They have to be seen to take in their beauty and his artistry. When I review books I have one main criteria in mind. What is on the front cover is delivered within. Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden past this one in the first 5 pages.

Easy Gardening with Drought-Resistant Plants
Average customer rating: Not rated
    Easy Gardening with Drought-Resistant Plants
    Arno Nehrling , and Irene Nehrling
    Manufacturer: Hearthside Press
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover

    GeneralGeneral | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
    ASIN: B0006BV37C
    Easy Gardening with Drought-Resistant Plants
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      Easy Gardening with Drought-Resistant Plants
      Arno; Nehrling, Irene Nehrling
      Manufacturer: Dover Publications
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback
      ASIN: B000J4SZA4
      EASY GARDENING W/DROUGHT RESISTANT PLANTS
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        EASY GARDENING W/DROUGHT RESISTANT PLANTS
        ARNO AND IRENE NEHRLING
        Manufacturer: Hearthside Press
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Hardcover
        ASIN: B000K3AZFC
        Easy Gardening With Drought-Resistant Plants
        Average customer rating: Not rated
          Easy Gardening With Drought-Resistant Plants
          Arno and Irene Nehrling
          Manufacturer: Heathside
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Hardcover
          ASIN: B000O68VEC
          Drought-Resistant Gardening (RHS Practical Guides)
          Average customer rating: Not rated
            Drought-Resistant Gardening (RHS Practical Guides)
            Royal Horticultural Society
            Manufacturer: Dorling Kindersley Publishers Ltd
            ProductGroup: Book
            Binding: Paperback

            Garden DesignGarden Design | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
            GeneralGeneral | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
            GeneralGeneral | Techniques | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
            Living on the LandLiving on the Land | Ecology | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books | Architecture | Hunting & Fishing
            ASIN: 0751306975
            Drought resistant forage experiments
            Average customer rating: Not rated
              Drought resistant forage experiments
              D. A Saunders
              Manufacturer: South Dakota Agricultural College, Experiment Station
              ProductGroup: Book
              Binding: Unknown Binding

              GeneralGeneral | Plants | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
              ASIN: B0008A1T84
              The Scientists tell me
              Average customer rating: Not rated
                The Scientists tell me
                Marilyn Brown
                Manufacturer: Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, Texas A & M University System
                ProductGroup: Book
                Binding: Unknown Binding

                GeneralGeneral | Plants | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
                WaterWater | Conservation | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
                ASIN: B00071K4SA
                Bulletin / South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station
                Average customer rating: Not rated
                  Bulletin / South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station
                  D. A Saunders
                  Manufacturer: U.S. Experiment Station, South Dakota
                  ProductGroup: Book
                  Binding: Unknown Binding

                  GeneralGeneral | Plants | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
                  ASIN: B0008A1SP8
                  Easy Gardening with Drought-resistant Plants
                  Average customer rating: Not rated
                    Easy Gardening with Drought-resistant Plants
                    Arno and Irene Nehrling
                    Manufacturer: Hearthside Press
                    ProductGroup: Book
                    Binding: Hardcover
                    ASIN: B000OFT0S4

                    Books:

                    1. 50 Recipes for Colourful Hanging Baskets
                    2. Drought Resistant Plants (RHS Practical Guides)
                    3. The Flower Expert (Expert Books)
                    4. 50 Weekend Garden Projects
                    5. Encyclopaedia of Australian Plants Suitable for Cultivation: v. 2
                    6. Rodale's All-new Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: The Indispensable Resource for Every Gardener
                    7. Starting Seeds Indoors
                    8. Sinsemilla Technique
                    9. Fuchsias: the Complete Guide
                    10. Bonsai: Its Art, Science, History and Philosophy

                    Books